Elimination Chamber (2010)
Elimination Chamber (2010) (also known as No Way Out (2010) in Germany) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which took place on February 21, 2010 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. It was the first event in the Elimination Chamber series. Six matches were aired on the broadcast and one dark match occurred prior to the live broadcast. The concept of the event was that the two main event matches, one each for the World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship, would occur in an Elimination Chamber. Each match featured six competitors: the defending champion and five challengers. Sheamus defended the WWE Championship against Triple H, Ted DiBiase, Randy Orton, John Cena, and Kofi Kingston in the Raw Elimination Chamber. In the SmackDown Elimination Chamber match, The Undertaker defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Chris Jericho, John Morrison, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, and R-Truth. On the undercard, Drew McIntyre defended the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Kane, The Miz defended the WWE United States Championship against Montel Vontavious Porter, and Maryse and Gail Kim competed against LayCool (Layla and Michelle McCool) in an interbrand Divas tag team match. The event received 285,000 pay-per-view buys, an increase on the figure earned by the 2009 No Way Out pay-per-view. Despite the increased number of buys, the event received generally negative reviews, with reviewers criticising the undercard of the show as being "weak" and consisting of "filler" material. Production Background In late 2009, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) held a poll on their official website to allow fans to choose a name for their February pay-per-view. The choices included Elimination Chamber, Heavy Metal, Battle Chamber, Chamber of Conflict and No Way Out, which had been the name of the preceding Elimination Chamber-based event. The name Elimination Chamber won, but the event was still promoted as No Way Out in Germany. The concept of the show was that each main event match was to be contested as an Elimination Chamber match. The Elimination Chamber is a circular steel cage, consisting of chains and girders, that surrounds the ring. Four 'pods' are enclosed within the chamber, one behind each ring post, which are on a steel platform surrounding the outside of the ring. Six wrestlers compete in the match; four are enclosed within the pods and released at random at specific time intervals, and two start the match. Wrestlers can only be eliminated via pinfall or submission, and the last wrestler left is the winner. For the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, both WWE world championships, the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship, were to be defended in separate Elimination Chamber matches. Pyrotechnics accident Just prior to the commencement of the World Heavyweight Championship Elimination Chamber match, The Undertaker was involved in a pyrotechnics accident during his ring entrance. He was temporarily engulfed in flames on three occasions when the pyrotechnics were mistimed, and his jacket briefly caught on fire. He suffered first- and second-degree burns to his neck and chest, and according to a WWE spokesperson the injury "looked like a bad sunburn". He was only allowed to participate in the match after being cleared by a ringside doctor and was given bottles of water throughout the match to douse himself with to alleviate the discomfort. Chris Jericho, who also competed in the match, has told on multiple occasions how the pyrotechnician responsible was relieved of his employment with WWE and escorted from the arena at the behest of The Undertaker. Storylines The professional wrestling matches at Elimination Chamber featured professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Storylines between the characters were produced on WWE's weekly television shows Raw and SmackDown with the Raw and SmackDown brands—storyline divisions in which WWE assigned its employees to different programs. The main event matches for the Elimination Chamber event consisted of two Elimination Chamber matches, with Raw's WWE Championship defended in one and SmackDown's World Heavyweight Championship defended in the other. Qualifying matches were held on the February 1 episode of Raw to determine the five challengers who would face the WWE Champion Sheamus in Raw's Elimination Chamber match. In qualifiers, John Cena defeated Cody Rhodes, Triple H defeated Jack Swagger, Randy Orton defeated Shawn Michaels, Ted DiBiase defeated Mark Henry, and Kofi Kingston defeated The Big Show by disqualification. In the weeks prior to Elimination Chamber the participants faced off in several matches, which included DiBiase vs. Cena ending in a no contest, Sheamus defeating Orton by disqualification, DiBiase defeating Kingston via pinfall, and Cena vs. Triple H ending in a no contest due to Sheamus interfering and attacking both participants. The February 5 episode of SmackDown saw the five wrestlers qualify to challenge The Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship in a similar fashion. John Morrison defeated Drew McIntyre and Kane in a triple threat match. Throughout the rest of the episode, this was followed by R-Truth defeating Mike Knox, CM Punk defeating Batista via countout, Chris Jericho defeating Matt Hardy, and Rey Mysterio defeating Dolph Ziggler. In the following weeks, the six wrestlers faced off in different combinations in singles matches that saw Mysterio pin Punk, Morrison vs. R-Truth end in a no contest due to Morrison suffering a storyline ankle injury, and Jericho defeating The Undertaker. On the February 19 episode of SmackDown, Morrison and R-Truth teamed up to face CM Punk and his 'follower' Luke Gallows in a tag team match, which Morrison and R-Truth lost via referee stoppage. In late December 2009, WWE Divas Champion Melina tore her anterior cruciate ligament, and was forced to vacate the championship. As a result, it was announced in January 2010 that a single-elimination tournament would be held to determine a new champion. The tournament began on the January 4 episode of Raw, when Maryse advanced to the semi-finals by defeating Brie Bella. She was followed into the semi-finals by Gail Kim, Alicia Fox, and Eve, who defeated Jillian Hall, Kelly Kelly, and Katie Lea Burchill respectively. In the semi-finals, Maryse defeated Eve and Kim defeated Fox. It was then announced on the February 8 episode of Raw that Maryse and Kim would face one another in the final at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. On the February 12 episode of SmackDown, the WWE Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre faced Kane in a non-title match. After the match went to a double-countout, Kane chokeslammed McIntyre. It was announced the following day on WWE's official website that Kane and McIntyre would meet at Elimination Chamber for the Intercontinental Championship. The following week, on the February 19 episode of SmackDown, Kane defeated Dolph Ziggler in a singles match. Following the match, he was attacked by McIntyre, but Kane was able to fight back and fend off the attack Aftermath Following his interference in the Elimination Chamber match to prevent The Undertaker from winning, Shawn Michaels cut a promo on the next episode of Raw, stating that he interfered so that The Undertaker would agree to a rematch at WrestleMania XXVI to get revenge. The Undertaker accepted the match on the condition that if Michaels lost, he would have to retire, to which Michaels agreed. Two weeks later, the pair agreed to make the match a no countout, no disqualification match. Edge returned from injury at the Royal Rumble as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble match, which he won, earning a guaranteed match for any WWE world championship. Following Jericho's victory in the Elimination Chamber, in which he won the World Heavyweight Championship, Edge speared him the following night on Raw and announced that he had elected to face Jericho at WrestleMania. Following this announcement, Edge began a campaign of surprise attacks on Jericho, spearing him on several occasions in an attempt to play mind games with Jericho. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Jericho hosted a special edition of his talk show segment, The Highlight Reel, with Edge as the guest. Edge attempted to spear Jericho again, but Jericho was able to avoid it and hit Edge with the World Heavyweight Championship belt instead. After Batista won the WWE Championship from John Cena at Elimination Chamber, Cena requested a rematch. Mr. McMahon agreed, on the condition that Cena must defeat Batista in a non-title match that night on Raw. Batista intentionally low-blowed Cena during the match to get disqualified and set up their match at WrestleMania. To build up their match, Batista interfered in several of Cena's matches in the weeks prior to WrestleMania, both attacking Cena or distracting him so that his opponent could gain the advantage. Tension within The Legacy faction had been growing since Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase accidentally cost Randy Orton the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble. After DiBiase eliminated Orton from the Elimination Chamber match, with the help of Rhodes, Orton turned on Rhodes and DiBiase, and attacked them during a six-man tag team match causing The Legacy to lose. In the following weeks, Orton faced DiBiase in a singles match and DiBiase and Rhodes in a two-on-one handicap match, until the guest host of Raw, Steve Austin, booked a triple threat match between Orton, Rhodes, and DiBiase for WrestleMania. After being eliminated from the Elimination Chamber match by Triple H, Sheamus attacked him on the March 1 episode of Raw in retaliation. The following week, Sheamus challenged Triple H to a match at WrestleMania, which Triple H accepted. On the final episode of Raw before WrestleMania, Sheamus teamed up with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase to defeat Triple H and Randy Orton in a two-on-three handicap match. Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Elimination Chamber Category:Elimination Chamber Category:World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view events Category:2010 Pay-Per-View Events